Kayda's 11th birthday

11 years with this amazing girl!  She is such a blessing.  She is crazy smart, compassionate, and always ready to help.  I couldn't imagine what life would be like without this girl.  She loves volleyball, swimming, hiking, math, reading, and science.  She hates social studies, doesn't like watching basketball in the slightest, loves animals and likes to boss people around.  Sometimes it's "leading" and other times she is straight up telling you the way it's going to be.  Pretty much everything in that list is evidence that she is my daughter.  

 She's in leadership at school, the teacher in charge and the counselor love her.  Of course, all her teachers love her so that's no surprise.  One of the things she does for leadership is to read to a class before school. So Monday - Thursday (Friday is her "day off") she goes into a kindergarten class and reads to them for the ten minutes before class officially starts.  All of the kids put their stuff away and immediately go to listen to her.  We went out to eat and one of the kiddos was there.  She looks at Kayda and says "Hey you're that girl that reads to us" and gave her a hug.  For a while they called her "underwear girl" because the first books she brought were some of the pictures books we think are so funny.  "Dinosaurs Love Underpants", "Pirates Love Underpants" "Aliens Love Dinopants" and "Monsters Love Underpants".  

Her class at school only has homework if they don't finish something at school, which means Kayda never has homework.  She is known by her class as the "smartest girl in class" but none of them say it in a bad way.  She doesn't rub it in and is always willing to help.  There is a boy in her grade, I don't think he's in her class, but she can't stand him.  She tells me it's because he's smart but is always bragging about it, "This class doesn't challenge me", "I'm so bored" and so on.  It drives her nuts.  

For her birthday we went to dinner with Grandma and Papa H, as always.  On a different weekend she was able to have Ella come spend the night.  I always offer for her to invite someone else, but Ella is pretty much her favorite. 

Dillon's soccer and banquet

This kid is awesome!  He didn't get many opportunities to do much other than play goal keeper because he was, by far, the best on the team.  He really wanted to try his hand at forward and he worked really hard to do it.  He got to play it a couple of times and showed huge improvements each time.  He is very naturally a defensive player but he was determined to figure out how to be offensive too.  That being said, I absolutely LOVE watching this kid play goalie.  He has a certain stance, he puts his legs shoulder width, bends his knees and hunches in with his arms curled, almost like a muscle pose, and he gets this look of determination.  He bounces around in the goal box cheering his team on, often kicking as if he's right there with his team and he blocks.  We had a really hard time getting Dillon to understand just how much he does for his team as keeper.  So we counted.  In one game he made over 15 blocks, 2 got past him.  The coach and the parents are always amazed, he manages to make blocks that boggle our minds.  If you get this kid set up with a couple of good defenders and you're set.  He really wants to score a goal, which I completely understand.  We're trying to get him to understand that making one goal is less important than blocking MANY goals.  Most of the games were really CJ and Dillon.  Dillon blocked goals, CJ made goals.  The other players were there and participated... a few made a couple of goals during the season... but in my mind CJ and Dillon were the deciding factors.   

With Coach Austin

Go Cheetahs!

I have some videos of his blocks.  Daddy was usually reffing and I didn't think to video, so this is just in one game.  I'm really sad because the shortest video is one of his good blocks, the kid was pretty far away so I had stopped recording and started again quickly when I realized where the ball was going.  You can see his throws a couple of times too.  It always took the other team by surprise when the ball would go sailing past the half way mark.

Here's the best one.  He had several like it thought the season.

These obviously aren't Dillon but this is how Carson spent a lot of Dillon's games.  He was pretty much always with Ty.  A lot of the times he was off running around but I got a kick out of it when they'd squeeze in together.

Kayda's braces are off!!!

Kayda's braces were estimated to take 16 to 18 months to fix her overbite.  18 months came and went, 2 years came and went.  Kayda kept getting more and more discouraged.  To try to help her we made a pact, when we found out they were going to come off we would keep it a secret and surprise everyone.  

Her October appointment came and they had me schedule the appointment for the moulds for the retainer, two weeks later they would come off.  Kayda was watching a movie and didn't hear.  I was nervous that they would change the plan, so I didn't tell her.  Two days before the retainer appointment she was having a REALLY hard day; so I told her that she was on the last step.  

Fortunately for her they didn't change plans and they had a new 3D scanner!  She didn't have to do the nasty tasting moulds!

After the moulds were taken she told me every night how many days were left until they came off.  I removed the appointment from the calendar so Daddy wouldn't get suspicious.  Her appointment was in the morning so we dropped off the boys and headed up.  

2 years and 4 months later, they're off!

Look at that grin!  She was practically vibrating!

She stayed home for the rest of the day so her family could be the first ones to see her new look!  Dillon and Carson took a while.  She giggled for a while until they figured it out.  When Daddy got home she grinned and stared at him until he noticed! 

She has to wear top and bottom retainers, day and night, for a few months.  She had a fun lisp for a few days while she adjusted to the retainers.

That night we had corn on the cob!  She also got to munch on the candy she's been saving (Starbursts and Skittles).  The next day she got to eat an apple without cutting it!  She was so excited!